The art of winning Lessons from my life in football

Belichick, the only NFL head coach to win six Super Bowls, aims in this competent debut manual to translate his experiences on the gridiron into life advice. He outlines a coaching philosophy that centers process and consistency, particularly during high-stakes moments (in preparing for the Patriots' winning 2002 Super Bowl game against the St. Louis Rams, he focused on making methodical adaptations to their defensive strategy, as the team had been doing all year, rather than doing something "big and dramatic"). Equally important, in Belichick's view, are versatility ("The more talents you possess, the more useful you will be in any kind of competitive environment," he writes, citing how players who can play multiple positions give coaches "great game-planning flexibility"), and owning one's mistakes (as a leader, admitting to one's own missteps promotes accountability and sets a standard for an open, honest culture). Belichick's lessons are solid and commonsense, and football fans will delight in the trivia and behind-the-scenes insights sprinkled throughout, even if the repeated shoutouts to his superstar quarterback, Tom Brady, can feel excessive. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but sports fans looking for leadership advice will find some helpful pointers. (May)

Up your game, even if it's not football. Belichick coached the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl wins, but here he targets readers in less glamorous fields. "You know the feeling of settling back at your desk and opening your email after a long vacation?" he writes. NFL coaches do--every summer when training camp starts. Belichick encourages us to view such workplace challenges as opportunities to outmaneuver competitors. "Adversity is universal," he writes on one of several pages reserved for a few words in huge, all-caps text. "Get over yours before the other person gets over theirs." He shares numerous football stories, several of them compelling. In 1975, he worked for no pay for the Baltimore Colts, snapping the ball in practice to the team's quarterback and shadowing Coach Ted Marchibroda--"a graduate-level tutorial in QB coaching." His Patriots anecdotes are mostly paeans to great players and overachieving low-draft picks. Tom Brady was both. Belichick prefaces a story about his longtime quarterback as "one I've never told before." Alas, it's a toothless yarn about Brady's self-confidence. Outside the lines, Belichick admires--and serially cites--prominent CEOs and financiers who've been glorified in other books. Belichick's dry humor lifts otherwise pedestrian sections about workplace communication and taking on new roles, and he owns some of his missteps, among them his failure to draft future MVP Lamar Jackson as Brady's successor. Curiously, Belichick finds time to remark on Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl halftime show "wardrobe malfunction," yet the biggest controversies of his tenure--Deflategate and the arrest (and eventual murder conviction) of one of his players, Aaron Hernandez--go unmentioned. Instead, there are platitudes on how to "take positive steps to affect change" and "win as a team." Professional advice--and a handful of interesting stories--from a gridiron champion. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.